Re: San Fransisco police getting drones

Link logger,

The reality is that drones safely operating in US civil airspace are FAR in the future - a decade at least - given the state of technology. I dearly hope by then you have given at least a cursory glance at the plentiful documentation explaining how aircraft separation actually works today. You would know that your "SanFran" scenario is impossible.

Surrounding every large airport in the US, and the majority of mid-sized ones, is a complex layer cake of airspace that all aircraft require specific clearance and unique radar transponder code tracking in order to enter. In this environment, under the visual flight rules which drones must operate, many instructions are given that require visually identifying and responding to nearby aircraft. For example, a controller might instruct "Learjet N314A, traffic is a Cessna at 10 o'clock and five miles. When you pass him, enter downwind for runway 13R." This requires immediately acquiring and identifying the called traffic and responding to the controller with precise, responsive, close-in maneuvering. No drone pilot could accomplish this safely with today's camera slew rates and visibility sphere.

That you don't know this indicates you should learn the fundamentals of aviation in-flight operations before positing anything about drones working in the civilian world.

Interestingly there are people who think the sensors are an invasion of privacy and others who think they are inadequate for flight.

One thing is to watch a remote target from a distance (potentially violating their privacy) and another is to correctly access safety of surrounding 3D-area full with flying objects within. If it's not obvious yet, next time try to drive your car looking ahead only through x12 binoculars...

The other thing is if my drone is going down, I don't mind going vertical if it means I miss everything, ie my drone doesn't even register on the importance scale (ie I'm not trying to save it) unless of course it has ordinance onboard in which case a nice big bay is always a good place to lose the boom to (reason why the English Channel is full of all sorts of goodies).

I don't care about your ordinance (which could make things even worse) or cost of your lost equipment at all. But what if your home is right beneath? Or may be mine, or may be someone else's? I know that you, trying to sell the drones, don't care. But ask the rest of the people. Do they want to see your drone to go vertical right above their heads?--Keep it simple, it'll become complex by itself...